Non je ne regrette rien
by Audley
Summary: The stakes are much higher for people in our line of work. Arthur/Eames, from Ariadne's PoV.


non, je ne regrette rien

_Did you know her?_

_Yes._

_What was she like?_

_She was lovely._

_/_

She opens the door and shouts of horror greet her. She catches a glimpse of unbelted pants, hears the heavy breathing and rustle of fabric, before sense and common decency return and she slams it shut again.

"Sorry!" she yells through the door, feeling equal parts giddy and frantic. She hears muffled laughter and clinking, footsteps, and then Arthur is opening the door, faint embarassment in his eyes. She enters the room cautiously, takes in the sight of Eames, looking distinctly more disheveled than usual, and Arthur as pristine as always.

"It's the accent, isn't it?" Ariadne says immediately, and Arthur rolls his eyes. Tucked away in the corner, Eames puffs himself up and winks at her. "I mean, why else? You're so—_clean_. And Eames is so…" she lets her voice trail off as Eames scowls at her.

"I can do clean," he says, offended, and Arthur laughs.

Ariadne smiles slightly, her eyes flicking back and forth between them, and the questions bubble to the top of her mind.

/

"_Why are you still here?" Eames asks, and his voice is frustrated, not neutral, nothing Arthur was supposed to hear and everything he doesn't want to. "You don't even _like _him."_

"_That's not—"_

"_Don't you dare fucking deny it, it's my bloody job to—"_

"_It's none of your business," Arthur snaps, then hangs his head. "I didn't mean that."_

"_I should bloody well hope not."_

"_I'm sorry."_

_Eames huffs, drums his fingers on the railing, leans into Arthur's shoulder. "I won't play second fiddle, you understand? I'm not who you end up with because you can't—" _

_But Arthur doesn't let him finish. He slants his mouth over Eames's and swallows whatever he'd been about to say._

"_Arthur and Eames? Really? Well, I can't say I'm surprised."_

Ariadne grips the phone tighter, sits up in her chair. "You mean you didn't know, already? I thought it had been going on for months, I mean, they're so—you know, comfortable with each other."

Cobb chuckles, his breath sending static crackling across the line. _"If by comfortable you mean blatantly hostile, then yeah, I guess I noticed."_

"They were flirting! It was playful banter. You know, like they were frenemies."

Cobb laughs outright at that, and Ariadne bites her lip to hold back her smile. _"Sure, sure. I could see that. So, did they tell you this officially or did you just decide for yourself?"_

"Eames told me. Bragged, actually."

"_Eames would."_

Ariadne hesitates. "So, Arthur didn't say anything…?"

Cobb laughs again._"Arthur and I don't discuss his personal life very often." _And Ariadne laughs along, because she certainly knows how that feels.

/

_(He sees her in a café—at the movies—on a swing at the park—always alone, always waiting._

_For me? he'll ask, and her answer is always yes.)_

/

"My god, you're nosy."

Ariadne makes a face at that, although of course it's true. She's lucky Arthur's in a good mood this morning, or else her relentless questioning would have earned her a scowl and a patronizing, "Go play with Eames or a sharp knife or something."

It's not that she's not extremely happy for both Arthur and Eames—she is—she just can't help herself. Her parents were very happy and in love and utterly dull for all of their lives, and they're the only basis she has for what a real relationship is.

"Are you two living together already?"

"No."

"Are you planning on it?"

"Someday, maybe."

"So, you think you'll get married?"

"That's not open for discussion."

"But—"

"Ariadne. Drop it."

She pouts for a minute. "Then can you tell me how you two met, at least?"

"I don't remember," he says, but Ariadne sees his fists clench and unclench.

"Then I'll just go ask—"

He cuts her off with a sharp "No" and she's so surprised she stops walking and stares at him.

Arthur sighs. "It's not—it's not necessarily a happy story."

Her eyes widen. "But—why? I mean, you two are happy now, right?"

Arthur starts walking again, leaving her behind. "Just let it go, alright?"

/

_It isn't raining. Arthur doesn't think that's fair. It rained on her wedding, but it's sunny blue skies and fluffy white clouds at her funeral. It's not fucking fair._

_Eames is watching him from the back of the church, he can tell. He can just tell. _

_The last speaker stops speaking. Arthur and Cobb and the other pallbearers file out. Arthur carries the back right corner, and it presses into his shoulder, sharp and unrelenting. He thinks he might have bruises later. _

_Cobb is at the top left corner, and Miles is next to him. He doesn't know the others, the ones in between, hasn't bothered to think about them._

_They pass the last pew and Arthur looks, can see Eames, can see the confusion furrowed in his brow, the tilt of sadness in his mouth. _

_Everyone follows, everyone is there, as they slide her coffin into the hearse, as they slide it into the ground, and they drop the dirt on top, then there are more words, and then everyone walks away. And Arthur doesn't stay at the grave because Cobb is there and will be there for a while, and anyway, Eames is waiting._

_Eames is waiting in his hotel room with two bottles of Scotch and they toast, over and over again, until Arthur can't feel his lips but it doesn't stop him from pressing them against Eames's, and they fuck, over and over again. It's the first time they have sex, the first time Arthur lets Eames touch him, lets himself just give in to it, and it feels better than he thought it would. _

_Eames sleeps like someone's dropped a house on him, so when Arthur thinks he's going to implode in on himself, he just flings off the arm thrown over his chest, stumbles into the bathroom, and his stomach heaves up all the scotch, all the semen, and he sits in the shower and he cries._

/

_(her eyes which are gray but they must be flecked with gold, and her smile is, her smile _is_, when she laughs he imagines the world is better for a moment—_

_her hair trails over his pillow like honey, her voice as sweet as she breathes his name, her eyelashes flutter gently and her fingers clutch the sheet, clutch at him—)_

/

She's pacing, and she knows she shouldn't, she knows this is ridiculous, creepy even (her mother's voice is in her head, _don't act like you don't know what happened to the cat)_ and she rolls her eyes because she's heard it so many times and it doesn't change anything, she still wants to know.

Ariadne dials Cobb and chews her lip until he picks up. "_Hello again, Ariadne."_

"Hi, Cobb. How's everything?"

"_Good, good. And yourself?"_

"I'm fine." She chews her lips some more, and Cobb waits. She thinks she can hear him smiling.

"So, uh…how did you meet Arthur and Eames, exactly?"

"_Why do you want to know?_"

"I'm just—"

Cobb cuts her off, and this time he is definitely smiling. "_Curious, I know._" He sighs, and Ariadne hears the scrape of a chair in the background. "_I don't really know how interesting it is."_

Ariadne shrugs before she remembers Cobb can't see it. "I want to know anyway."

"_I know you do. Why is it you always want to know so much?" _Ariadne rolls her eyes at this, because she can picture Cobb's face in her mind perfectly, the exasperation in the firm set of his mouth, bemusement clear in the twitch of his eyebrows.

"You _know_ why."

Cobb sighs again, in defeat, and Ariadne nearly leaps out of her chair in triumph.

"_Eames is just one of those guys you hear about, and you hire him when you need him. But he's saved my back a few times and I've saved his, both in and out of dreams. Do that enough times and you end up stuck with somebody. You should know."_ His voice is teasing, and Ariadne giggles, and then hates herself for it.

"_And Arthur…Mal introduced me to Arthur. They met in Paris, where we lived right after we got married. He had just been hired by Mal's father—Professor Miles—to teach new students about the PASIV project."_

"So Arthur knew about it already?"

"_Yeah. He was part of the original branch of the military that studied it."_

"Oh. He was in the military? What—why did he…?"

"_I don't know. Like I said the last time we talked, Arthur and I don't talk about Arthur's personal life." _Cobb hesitates. "_Besides, he was always closer to Mal than he was to me."_

_/_

_(He's an impassioned young soldier on leave in the most romantic city in the world, she's an aspiring actress waiting to be swept off her feet—_

_he's a naïve university student looking for a thrill, she's a singer with the voice of an angel but the past of the devil—_

_he's a bitter, burnt-out bartender, she's the only woman he's ever loved—)_

_(They will always have Paris.)_

_/_

Ariadne was surprised to learn that, in real life, between jobs, Arthur works as an online accountant for high-profile businesses. She had once asked Eames why he bothered, it's not like he needed the money, and anyway it's so _boring _in comparison. Eames had chuckled and explained that a man like Arthur really can't sit still for very long, and Ariadne nodded because this was actually something she understood.

But it doesn't stop Ariadne from joining Eames in tempting Arthur away from his computer and his books as often as they can. It's all great fun, at least until Arthur inevitably kicks them out for being too insufferable and distracting. Eames usually takes her out to lunch afterwards, a little deli they discovered just around the corner, and they happily complain about Arthur to each other over sandwiches and lemonade.

Today Ariadne gets them kicked out faster than usual—Arthur is so _particular_ about the way he wants his furniture arranged—but she's pleased as Eames traipses grudgingly along next to her towards the little deli.

She waits until they've settled with their usual orders (ham sandwich with cucumber and tomato for him, bologna on wheat for her) and then she brings it up, as casually as she can.

"So how did you and Arthur meet?"

Eames chokes on his ham and she has to whack him on the back a few times before he can finally swallow. "Been waiting all day to ask that, haven't you?" he says hoarsely, squinting at her.

She blinks at him, all innocence. "Is it a secret or something?"

Eames makes a face at her. "Nice try. Being in this business doesn't always mean you have some sort of dark mystery in your past," he says, and raises an eyebrow at her.

She scowls at the table, her sandwich crumpled in her fists, and refuses to look at him. "I'm just curious. I've known you guys for what, nearly two years now? And I still feel like I don't know anything about you. I mean, we share dreams on a semi-regular basis. Doesn't that entitle me to knowing _something_ about your past?"

Eames chuckles. "We're coworkers, Ariadne. Professionals in a highly selective—"

"—right, because walking in on you bending Arthur over his desk is _so_—"

Eames grandly talks over her, "—a highly selective field. That does not exclude us, however, from respecting the traditional values of the workplace, in particular the privacy of a coworker. So, no, you are not entitled to know anything at all." He beams when she scowls again, at him this time.

"This isn't like any other job though, any other workplace," she argues. "We are routinely inside each other's heads. You can't say that—that it doesn't _guarantee_ some level of intimacy, however unwilling."

Eames shrugs. "It's all a matter of choice, really. You can be just as intimate with someone without being inside their head, if you want."

"But seeing someone die right in front you—or even having to kill your friend, your coworker—that has to mean something when you wake up. That doesn't just go away." Eames shrugs again, his face closed.

Ariadne feels her throat tighten. "So, what?" she snaps. "Does this mean that none of us are-are friends, or something? It's all just in my head, because I wanted it to be this way? None of it's _real_?" and her voice is shriller than it should be, and she's gotten to her feet without realizing it, and Eames is just staring at her, expressionless.

She sits down heavily and sniffles and is gratified when he looks alarmed. "Look, calm down, alright? I didn't mean to upset you, I just—ah." He rubs his hands across his head, suddenly looking tired. "You are very much like Mal was."

Ariadne glances up, startled. "You knew Mal?"

Eames nods, then, seeing the look on her face, rolls his eyes. "Yes, I knew her. Not very well, but we'd met often enough that she felt justified giving me the same sort of speech you just did."

"And did you make her cry about it as well?" she asks, sniffling for effect. Eames eyes her like he knows what she's up to, then sighs. _Victory_, Ariadne thinks smugly.

"No, I did not. She had a point. So do you. But," and Eames shrugs, half-smiling, his eyes faraway. "I can't help but want to play devil's advocate whenever this topic comes up."

Ariadne is quiet for a moment, digesting this. "So what do you really think?"

He glances at her. "About what, exactly?"

"Well, about Mal and Cobb. Or you and Arthur. About anyone that falls in love in this line of work."

Eames leans back in his chair, settles his arms across his chest. "I think we have as much of a shot as anyone else," he pauses, and Ariadne knows there's a 'but' coming. "But Mal and Cobb, especially, were proof that the stakes are much higher for people in our line of work."

/

_He hears his name and turns, the Professor enters the room and he smiles, he's saying_

_there's someone I'd like you to meet. _

_He opens the door and there she is, her eyes gray rainclouds against the sun of her smile and the blue sky of her dress, and he's shaking her hand and happiness is breaking through a dam in his chest and he says her name like it's a song, and then she turns and says, _

_and this is my husband, Dom._

_/_

"_Do you love her, or something?" Eames asks, and his voice is conversational, as if he hasn't just sprung this question on Arthur after knowing him for precisely one day. Arthur stiffens immediately and yanks his arms forward, burning his wrists and doing nothing to loosen the ropes._

"_Ah. So she doesn't know." Eames falls silent, contemplating._

_Arthur closes his eyes and tries to forget he's there, but he can't help it, he can't ignore the weight of Eames pressed against his back, their fingers touching because their wrists are tied together. _

"_What's it like?" Eames asks, still conversational, and Arthur suddenly hates him more in this moment than he's ever hated anyone else, hates him for asking and hates him for noticing, as if he has any right to judge, as if he even _knows_. _

_(What's it like, to see them together, to be in her dreams and know, beyond any shadow of a doubt_, _there's no room for you)_

"_Shut up," Arthur hisses._

_Eames exhales and Arthur feels it through his own chest, hears the air whistle past his lips. "I was only asking, darling, pardon me, no need to get so—"_

_And he thinks he shouted, he doesn't know what, but then he's awake, he's shaking, he flinches away from Dom's hand and he doesn't look at Mal, he can't, and he hears a deep voice chuckle, and then he's up and gone, sprinting for the door, away, away, away._

_/_

(_Her dreams are watercolor paintings and the sound of leaves falling and they wash lightly over him, soft as the brush of snow and he loves being in them with her almost as much as he loved her in his)_

_/_

Ariadne sits up in her bed because her room is as bright as daylight even though it's the middle of the night. She rocks back and forth for a bit, hoping to lull herself into sleep, but she does know better and quickly gives up. She paces. The problem is—the problem is—

The problem is what always happens when she does this, because she's done it before, many times, she just _never learns,_ her mother's voice scolds and she scowls at her reflection in the glass but it changes nothing, she still _knows_.

Or she thinks she does. She frowns, and the story jumbles itself in her head. She wishes she could dump out all the pieces she thinks she has and lay them out on the floor, put them together where she thinks they belong, but the edges are all fuzzy, so this piece might connect to that piece, or that one, or that one—Ariadne gives up and calls Cobb.

"_mmmm…hello?"_

"Uh, did I wake you?"

"_Yes, Ariadne, you did, because it's nighttime, which is when people sleep. Usually."_

"Right, I know, I'm sorry—I just, I can't figure—I mean, I think I'm missing something."

Cobb's voice is so sleepy. "_Mmhmm_." Ariadne damns the swoop in her stomach and takes a breath and swoops on.

"Why didn't you ever tell Arthur what happened—what really happened—to Mal?"

/

"_James?" he says, with some surprise, and she nods encouragingly, her gray eyes looking up at him like gray lights. "You don't have to."_

"_Oh, but Arthur—you'll be his godfather. You do like it, don't you?" her voice is breathless, and he laughs self-consciously. _

"_How could I not like it—it's my middle name."And she smiles at him, just once, radiantly, before she whisks herself away to go tell Dom, and Arthur downs the last of his scotch. He pretends not to notice Eames has sidled into the room._

"_You're really some martyr, love," Eames purrs in his ear, and Arthur can smell the tang of alcohol on his breath. Arthur shrugs, not bothering to respond. Months around Eames have desensitized him._

_Eames takes Arthur's silence as an invitation and drapes his arms across Arthur's shoulders, nuzzles into the back of Arthur's neck, and for a moment Arthur lets him, before he steps smartly away and tugs at his vest, straightening it._

"_That's enough, Mr. Eames," he says. Eames pouts, and Arthur just shakes his head. _

"_Do you think she'll wake up one day and notice you? Just leave all this—" Eames waves his hand around the home, her home, hers and Dom's—"and come running into your arms?"_

_Arthur thinks it's the scotch, maybe or the warmth of the fire, but the words fly out before he can stop them. "Have you _ever_ been in love, Mr. Eames?"And he turns to look at his face but instead he sees Dom, half covered in the shadows of the hallway, and the blood rushes from his head but it's just Dom, Dom walking away from the door, and then it's just Eames, stricken, an apology already forming on his lips but Arthur turns back to the fire. He doesn't want to hear it._

_/_

Arthur's on the roof, right where Eames said he'd be, because that's where Arthur goes when he broods.

"Hey," she says, but she knows he knows she's already there. She leans against the wall next to him and stares at the city spread out beneath them.

"Hi," he replies, and she sneaks a peek at his face, tries to gauge his mood. He notices and smiles faintly. "I'm not mad about anything, don't worry."

"I wasn't worried," she says automatically. "Well, not about that, anyway."

Arthur nods, looking down at his hands. "Eames told you, then?"

"Cobb, actually. I talked to him on the phone last night."

"Ah."

Ariadne watches her fingers tap out rhythms on the concrete ledge. She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, holds it, just long enough to make her feel slightly light-headed and then the words come rushing out of her and she tells him.

If there is anyone who would understand it would be Arthur, Arthur who is always perfectly put together and follows the plans and plans the numbers and records the details and knows the information and that is what compels her to keep talking, to spill out everything until he understands what he should and what she does and why she had to do it.

She talks until her words dry up and then she grips the edge of the concrete and the silence is tense but she cannot, _cannot_ break it first, it has to be Arthur, this is about Arthur finally getting the right answers, Arthur finally being able to let go—and she did it for him and Eames and for herself and for Cobb, because he was too scared to, too selfish, too afraid to do it himself.

Arthur's head is bowed, his eyes closed, his mouth drawn and tight. "Thank you," he whispers, after several minutes. "I always—I wondered. But I never could—" and he has to stop, and clear his throat, and a flush runs through Ariadne at the tears that stand stark in his eyes. "I could never let myself—" and he can't finish and Ariadne nods because she understands.

"I loved her," Arthur says into the air, and Ariadne knows he can only say it because it's been five years to the day since her funeral and some things take time to heal.

_/_

_(he tries to call her up to piece him back together again, tries to imagine her hand smoothing away the sadn__ess in his eyes, and instead she glares at him, and her hand whips across his cheek and he gasps with the pain and her voice crackles at him as the needle spins the record, _

_how could you, you know who I love, you know who I love—)_

_/_

"No, what she needs is a good hard—"

"Can we please not talk about Ariadne that way? _Ever_."

Eames shrugs and flops down next to Arthur on the couch. "I'm just saying, it would give her something to do with her time."

"She's harmless," Arthur says, and Eames snorts.

"Yeah, let's see how well you hold out the next time she comes at you with a pair of teary eyes and a million awkward questions." He settles himself across Arthur's lap and Arthur makes a small impatient noise but lets him, raises his book and rests his arms on Eames's torso.

"Why didn't you just tell her?"

"Why didn't _you_?"

Arthur doesn't answer and Eames sits up, dislodging Arthur's book, resting his elbows on his knees, his back to Arthur's face. But he turns to look after just a second, because he can't help himself. Arthur's eyes meet his and they are calm, content.

"It's not who I am anymore," Arthur says easily, and his hand reaches out to tug at Eames's collar.

"I know," Eames replies, and he smiles.

_/_

_(—I know who you love—)_

_/_

* * *

So, that's that. Please, describe to me any emotional response you may have had to this.

Thanks a million times over to Arty D'Arc for betaing and putting up with me as I tried to write this. It was a process.

I don't own_ Inception _or the Edith Piaf song 'Non je ne regrette rien' which basically means 'I regret nothing' or something like that.

Originally posted on LJ.

Cheers!


End file.
